April 15, 2007

Mobile phones, disappearing bees, and our lifespans

{See later story debunking the following.}

Here's an alarming news bit, not to mention the un-cited study results at the end, but I will. [And I've added an article from The Scotsman, which includes discussions of the info in the article.]
Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? - by Geoffrey Lean and Harriet Shawcross for The Independent (UK), Apr 15, 2007.
". . . some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.
. . . The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.
. . . The West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast. [ Europe is affected too. ]

. . . The implications of the spread are alarming. Most of the world's crops depend on pollination by bees. Albert Einstein once said that if the bees disappeared, 'man would have only four years of life left.'

[No cites for the following]
    Most research on cancer has so far proved inconclusive. But an official Finnish study found that people who used the phones for more than 10 years were 40 per cent more likely to get a brain tumour on the same side as they held the handset.
    Equally alarming, blue-chip Swedish research revealed that radiation from mobile phones killed off brain cells, suggesting that today's teenagers could go senile in the prime of their lives.
    Studies in India and the US have raised the possibility that men who use mobile phones heavily have reduced sperm counts.
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